Unproven Innocent
by Mouserocks-nerd
Summary: Post-ep adaptation for 5x05. Because it had to be done. My advance apologies. Castle muses over the case and what a close call it had been for him and the life he's led up to this point... Read and Review!


**A/N:** Because this had to be thrown out there somewhere. Yes, it is *way*OOC, and fairly AU even, with regards to a couple of points in the backstory, but I just couldn't help myself. I had to ask the awful scary 'what-if' question... Post episode one-shot for 5x05. Enjoy!

**P.S.** Reposted, due to the fact that it is ridiculously late and I accidentally uploaded the wrong version, which made it a little mixed up..

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He had resources, he'd told her. She didn't want to know, he'd told her.

She really didn't want to know. If she really knew, it would be his undoing. She was an officer of the law- a homicide detective, one of the best, in fact. Rick couldn't risk her knowing. Even if she had believed him the entire way through this time, and trusted and defended him up to the very end, he still couldn't risk raising her suspicions. That, and the fact that she was constantly surrounded by other law officers who might find him suspicious if told even by accident.

This time was close. Everything had gone exactly as planned anyways. But it had been really close. For a moment there, Castle had been genuinely worried. Tyson had turned on him. Their confrontation in lock up had been threatening, eye-opening, even. Tyson had casually mentioned to him before about how he wanted to go out on his own, strike his own ground. But each time, Castle had persuaded him to stay on board with him. He'd convinced him with money, girls, covers and alibis. As a multi-millionaire, Richard Castle had just about everything he could imagine at his fingertips. And Tyson had the method for him to get the things that were just out of his reach.

Plenty of resources, indeed.

It hadn't started this way. Sure, he'd always had some sick fascination with murder and death, but he hadn't started right out the gate with killing people. He had struggled through it, had started by writing out his fascinations. Different methods would pop into his brain, and he had eventually created a single character that he could test out all the best ways to die on. He'd experiment with how they could possibly escape death, or not escape it.

That was when he'd written Derrick Storm. By _Storm Fall_, he had discovered the perfect way to kill off that character, and then all of the sudden, there was nothing else. He didn't even want to revive Storm, despite all of his publicist's nagging. He was done with him. Derrick Storm was dead.

And for the first time since he started writing about death and murder, Richard Castle had nothing but time to kill.

That's when it really all started.

Alyson Tisdale. The idea that someone would be so clever as to recreate a scene out of one of his books in order to pin it on a crazed fan... It was not only flattering, but appealing. And being able to worm his way into working with the homicide department of the the NYPD was the icing on the cake. He could literally have a front row seat to every murder in the city.

For a long while, that was enough. Bodies cropped up everywhere, all the time. It didn't hurt that the very attractive Detective Beckett, along with his new body viewing pastime, had provided him with inspiration for a whole new set of books. And he still got the twisted look into the underbelly of crime.

But all of the sudden, one day, it was no longer enough. One day, almost three years into his working relationship with the New York Police Department and with the lovely Detective Katherine Beckett, Richard knew he needed more. He had grown more and more enamored with Kate, and it was no longer about the bodies and the fascination of murder. It was all about _her_. And subsequently, his death fix was no longer fulfilled by shadowing her.

And then he had stumbled upon it. The man who had the key to getting rid of his problem, the one person he could trust implicitly in his sick, twisted endeavors.

Jerry Tyson.

It was a perfect plan, really. Jerry had killed before- had gotten away with it. Six times. He wouldn't risk jeopardizing his anonymity by not doing as Castle asked, by not coming out of hiding and helping him out with a pet project of his.

The first time, Castle had asked to know nothing about it. Just to get it done and get him proof. The adrenaline rush he'd gotten off of just that one photo... and then the crime scene itself when he and Beckett had gone! It was enough to keep him moving forward. On to bigger and better things. He'd even had Tyson kidnap him, just to add some fright to the situation once, get the adrenal glands pumping. It had been largely successful, despite all of the struggles, and in return he had helped Tyson once again disappear off the map, giving him considerable chunks of money every now and then for his help.

In all, Richard himself had only ever killed one person. And that was a long time ago, way before any of this other stuff came up. In fact, he barely remembered the incident. All he knew is that he was way too young, and it had been ruled as an accident. No three year old child would, in most circumstances, kill his own father and not have a reason for doing so. Not one that he would give away as soon as he was asked. Children weren't like that, and they especially didn't lie. The gun had been his father's, and it had sat out in the open fully loaded with the safety off. Rick was only lucky that, when he'd been playing with it, the barrel had been facing away from him. His father had gotten the unlucky end.

Still, even though he had convinced himself that he remembered very little of it, Rick knew that had been the trigger. Somehow, that accidental murder is what sent him on his macabre journey, his long road of obsession with death and murder. And now there was no stopping it.

Yes, there had only been one victim that Richard had personally killed in his entire life. Up until now.

Tessa Horton.

He hadn't even been involved with her. He hadn't even known the woman, until he'd heard passing rumors from some of his guys underground that Jerry was back in town. He'd traced him back to the woman, gotten closer and closer to her, until he'd found out for sure about Tyson. Once he knew that Tyson was back, and on the hunt for him, he had snapped into that person once again- the person who thirsted for blood and gore and death.

Castle hadn't even really intended to kill her, but somehow, the blood-lust had entered him, and before he knew what he was doing, Tessa was dead by his own hands, and he had fled the apartment in a state of near panic.

He hadn't known Tyson had gone through there at all until he and Beckett were called into the crime scene of the murder he had committed and it looked entirely different than he had left it, and yet eerily familiar at the same time.

When Lanie and Esposito described how she was when she was found, he knew exactly where the familiar feeling had come from. He had, after all, written the scene himself. That was when he knew it was Tyson who had done it. He was the only one with whom he had shared the whereabouts of his file.

When he had been scrutinized for the murder, though, is when he knew Tyson had officially turned on him.

The NYPD holding cell confrontation had only confirmed what he already knew. Tyson didn't like how he had outed him and not used him recently. Castle was to blame for his life on the run. It hadn't helped any that he had stopped the payment of Tyson's hush money in the last several months. When the twelve grand went missing, Castle knew exactly who took it and why. A down payment, in all likelihood, that Jerry Tyson felt was owed him for all of his hard work and mostly for his willingness to keep his mouth shut.

The way it had all ended, though, was too convenient. He knew, in some deep, dark part of his heart, that Jerry Tyson, and therefore 3XK, would live to kill another day. But, damn, if it hadn't felt good to shoot the bastard! He practically emptied the mag into his one-time ally before he fell over the edge and into the river below, and that was the most adrenaline that Rick had felt in a long, long time.

Sitting there with Kate afterwards, he knew it wasn't over. Far from it. His days were numbered- his days with Kate, working with the police, even his days out of prison or out of Tyson's reach. It would all come crashing down around him eventually.

But.

There was always that but. But what if he got away with it? What if Tyson was really, truly dead? What if 3XK was never seen or heard from again? What if Kate never found out? He had gotten away with it so far, and that was a large part of what egged him on. Sure, he wouldn't need a major fix again for a while now- this week had certainly given him his fill of murder and mayhem. He might be able to last a long time without attracting any more suspicious attention. Maybe, if he never did get caught, he would write a book in his old age and have it published after his own death, detailing the antics of a character eerily similar to himself and 3XK who had a hunger for the crime of murder. It would probably sell to millions. Of course, he'd be dead.

But it was all really a pipe dream. Eventually, Richard knew he would crave it again. The attention, or the killing, he didn't know, but something told him that he wouldn't be able to resist it. It was simply in his nature.

For his own sick pleasure, Richard Castle would see how long this would last.

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**A/N: **Review please! Probably should have put a bit of a WHAM warning at the top but... nah! I'm twisted. Feel free to let me know exactly how twisted this is. :)


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